Poetry & Poets in Rags

If you like the sonnet, scroll into Great Regulars and check out Linda Sue Grimes' offerings this week. She looks at seven of them, from different times and in different styles. Carol Rumens' poem of the week is a sonnet as well.

We begin, however, in News at Eleven, with Helen Vendler looking at Simon Armitage. On our Back Page there, comes this phrasing: "there is no nation where the people love poetry more," about a country which celebrated with a poetry festival.

There is a whole lot more to discover, and I will leave that for you to do. Thanks for clicking in.

Yours,
Rus

Our links:

IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags

Poetry & Poets in Rags blog

IBPC Home

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Rus Bowden · at 4:52 PM

to help him in wringing the neck of a ram mortally wounded by a car:

To help finish it off, he asked me to stand
on its throat, as a friend might ask a friend

to hold, with a finger, the twist of a knot.
Then he lifted its head, wheeled it about
by the ammonite, spirograph shells of its horns
till its eyes, on stalks, looked back at its bones.

And so it ends, without editorial comment, but the reader flinches as Armitage, in a very Hughes-like move, expends his best aesthetic effort on the last two murderous lines.

from The New Republic: A New Head

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Rus Bowden · at 4:51 PM

Come the spring, there will be another Poet Laureate, so who should it be? Someone who deals in lyric verse, or someone who can do rousing rum-ti-tum with the common touch?

Carol Ann Duffy can do both, very well, and is justly celebrated for her imaginative engagement with children. Simon Armitage, a cool but blokeish Northerner with fluency and grit, could speak to the problem of disaffected teenage boys. Benjamin Zephaniah and Roger McGough do terrific rum-ti-tum and make people laugh.

from Telegraph: Poet Laureate: does poetry need one?

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Rus Bowden · at 4:50 PM

talismanic England of "Sid James, Diana Dors/Brylcreem and Phyllosan" better than most of the natives, he also knows how little it might take to undo it, because he has inhabited an equivalent everyday world elsewhere, for example in the residential courtyards of Budapest, in which potted plants and bicycles are found within hailing distance of murder, as in "The Courtyards" (1986): "There's always someone to consider, one/you have not thought of, one who lies alone,/or hangs, debagged, in one more public square."

from The Guardian: One who lies alone
also George Szirtes: Guardian review of the New and Collected Poems

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Rus Bowden · at 4:49 PM

of the Taliban. She crafts poems telling of the pain and suffering of children just like her; girls banned from school, their books burned, as the hard-core Islamic militants spread their reign of terror across parts of Pakistan.

A stanza of one of her poems reads: "Tiny drops of tears, their faces like angels, Washed with blood, they sleep forever with anger."

from CNN: Girl poet takes on the Taliban with her pen

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Rus Bowden · at 4:49 PM

the government's decision, announced today, to start freeing 6,313 prisoners tomorrow, but reiterates its call for the release of the 16 journalists and cyber-dissidents held in Burma.

A Rangoon court also reduced blogger Nay Phone Latt's jail sentence from 20 years and six months to 12 years today, four days after comedian Zarganar's jail sentence was cut from 59 to 25 years. The original sentences were imposed last November by a special court inside Rangoon's Insein prison.

from Reporters Without Borders: On eve of major amnesty, call for release of 16 journalists and cyber-dissidents

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Rus Bowden · at 4:48 PM

in a person or culture at a specific time, neither gratuity nor utility ever entirely loses motivating force. A psychologically healthy society is one in which gratuitous values are in approximately equal balance with the sole pragmatic value, efficiency.

Postmodern life dehumanizes because utility now far outweighs gratuity, which traditionally has been expressed in domestic rituals, religion and the arts.

from The Globe and Mail: Poetry means the world to us

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Rus Bowden · at 4:47 PM

famous steamy poem about wine drinkers in the version by [Vladimir] Nabokov, who calls it "The Strange Lady":

And her taut silks,
her hat with its tenebrous plumes,
her slender bejeweled hand
waft legendary magic.

And here is the same stanza from Schmidt, who titles his version, "The Lady Nobody Knows":

Her dress is silk, it whispers legends
and moves in waves against her skin;
her hat is a forest of black feathers,
her narrow fingers glow with rings.

from The New Republic: Vlad the Impaler

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Rus Bowden · at 4:47 PM

[Hannah] Zeavin now recalls of O'Hara's poetry, which she devoured during her days off from school. She went on to take four years of poetry at Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn, work closely with a literary mentor, win a handful of distinguished prizes and read everything from classical to contemporary poetry. Now a published poet at the age of 18 with her first book, "Circa," Zeavin is both excited and afraid of what the book's official release in April will mean for her career as a writer--especially because she has not been able to write since arriving on campus.

from Yale Daily News: Student poet juggles writing, life at Yale

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Rus Bowden · at 4:45 PM

relationships that go to make it up hum through his poetry; a scent of garbage, patchouli and carbon monoxide drifts across it, making it the lovely, corrupt, wholesome place New York is."

O'Hara's poetry often has the feel of a late-night taxi ride through Manhattan in the company of a brilliant friend who is capable of pointing out the "ozone stalagmites/deposits of light" that make up the city's skyline.

from The Sunday Times: Frank O'Hara provides the poetry of Mad Men

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Rus Bowden · at 4:45 PM

But that's like saying that in any age there are always at most five or six great poets whose work will survive a century hence. But I've noticed, too, that those who make this argument are seldom the ones most likely to endure. If you feel, as I do, that it is important to enlarge the audience for poetry, then you have to go beyond your own narrow self-interest; you have to go beyond the interest of your faction. Contemporary poetry is marked by factions and factionalism. Each faction thinks well of itself and belittles the others. This is a natural state of affairs.

from Eurozine: There's always someone who says that poetry is dead

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Rus Bowden · at 4:44 PM

have their own poetry and well-known poets, but in my opinion, there is no nation where the people love poetry more and where poetry plays such an important role in life as much as in Viet Nam," says Huu Thinh, chief of the organising board.

"The audience can approach poetry in different ways. National Poetry Day also expresses the originality of Vietnamese culture," he says.

from VietNamNet Bridge: National Poetry Day unites lovers of verse

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Rus Bowden · at 4:27 PM

Nestling in a corner of the NYT website is this high-quality offering, subtitled How to Write a Song and Other Mysteries. Regular contributors include Andrew Bird and Suzanne Vega, so the insights come straight from the horses' mouths.

daytrotter.com
Based in Rock Island, Illinois, Daytrotter is a blog, of sorts, and then some. [. . .]

from Bryan Appleyard: The Sunday Times: A guide to the 100 best blogs: part II

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Rus Bowden · at 4:27 PM

and literature courses at Avila University in Kansas City for 12 years. The school's artist in residence and an assistant professor, he has published four books of poetry. The most recent is "Blue Beat Syncopation," published by BkMk Press.

Banks is accompanied at poetry readings by his wife, Janet M. Banks, who has published her first book, "Stewed Soul."

The following poem will be published in the Coal City Review.

Twice on the Road to the Funeral Home

from Walter Bargen: The Post-Dispatch: Missouri poet: Stanley E. Banks

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Rus Bowden · at 4:25 PM

of just sitting and listening to the river could, in fact, become quite addictive, and he has seen this happen to so many other folks. But this speaker's conscience will not allow him to succumb to a way of life that will eventually provide him nothing but poverty and stagnation. Instead of allowing himself to become a bum on the river, "somp'n way inside me rared up an' say,/'Better be movin' . . . better be travelin' . . ./Riverbank'll git you ef you stay. . . .'."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Brown's Riverbank Blues

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His life is "dead" even as he prays for "lively bliss." He will flaunt his sorrow and misery while looking for more ways of expressing his melancholy. His exaggeration saturates his dramatic expression, as he continues to complain, mourn, and yearn for his absent beloved.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Edmund Spenser's Sonnet 89

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He emphasizes the necessity of living in the moment by rightly calling it "the uncertain harvest." By looking so far ahead and not appreciating the beauty of the current moment, the individual not only loses that current moment but also may be disappointed by that future harvest, if it fails to produce enough quality fruit.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Frost's A Prayer in Spring

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But once she is on her way, she realizes "the world's open." She then observes that the sky is turning pink with the rising of the sun, but she dramatizes that sunrise in a very telling way: "the sky begins to blush/as you did when your mother told you/what it took to be a woman in this life."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Rita Dove--Two Sonnets

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The speaker then poses two questions instead of offering claims motivated by his observations about "reckoning Time." He wonders why, even knowing about and "fearing Time's tyranny," he is unable to simply say, "Now I love you best."

He is certain that the statement is true, and he assumes that he should be able to make this remark without having to know all future thoughts and feelings that might assail him. But the statement offers such a bald assertion that it does not seem to capture completely all he truly feels.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 115

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The speaker in this regard then seeks out his Muse as a devotee would seek out a priest for confession. His Muse behaves as his anchor as well as his inspiration; she has the power to absolve his transgressions, but this power comes solely through the speaker/artist's ability to create his salvation in art. The complexity of his relationship with his Muse remains a unique achievement with this speaker/poet.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 117

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However, he did not actually do anything to bring on true illness, he only used a preventative medicine, which makes the patient ill in order to prevent a worse illness, for example, taking a vaccine. The patient may experience a slight fever or other symptoms, but these are far preferable to having the disease itself.

Even so, the speaker is using all this as a metaphor. He does not mean that he took a physical medicine; he is referring only to a way of thinking; therefore, the medicine to which he refers is mental, his thinking process, not physical, not actually swallowing medicine.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 118

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He then addresses "Disease," commanding it, "ply your tortures." Despite the ravages of illness, the speaker can again repeat, "Still I am free, ever free." When the opposite of "Disease," that is, "Health" has been one's fortune, the human may become overconfident; thus, the speaker commands, "Health, try your lures."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Yogananda's Freedom

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Rus Bowden · at 4:24 PM

has been re-launched in Tibet and there is a heavy presence of armed security and military forces in most of the cities all over Tibet. In all the places those who dare to come out even with a slight hint of their aspirations have to face torture and detention. In particular, special restrictions have been imposed in the monasteries, patriotic re-education has been launched, and restrictions have been imposed on the visit of foreign tourists. Provocative orders have been passed for special celebrations of the Tibetan New Year. Looking at all these developments it becomes clear that the intention and aim behind them are to subject the Tibetan people to such a level of cruelty and harassment that they will not be able to tolerate and thus be forced to remonstrate. When this happens the authorities can then indulge in unprecedented and unimaginable forceful clampdown. Therefore, I would like to make a strong appeal to the Tibetan people to exercise patience and not to give in to these provocations so that the precious lives of many Tibetans are not wasted, and they do not have to undergo torture and suffering.

from Tenzin Gyatso: The Office of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama: New Year Message of H.H. the Dalai Lama to the Tibetan People

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Rus Bowden · at 4:24 PM

read a poem last month at President Barack Obama's inauguration. But few, so far, have chosen to buy it.

Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 75 percent of sales, says Alexander's "Praise Song for the Day: A Poem for Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration" has sold just 6,000 copies so far.

from Hillel Italie: Associated Press: Remember the inaugural poem? Few apparently do

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Rus Bowden · at 4:23 PM

I offer this embittered, anti-love poem by Alan Dugan to relieve the sting of last week's heart-spattered holiday. "Love Song: I and Thou" takes its mocking title from Martin Buber's philosophical treatise Ich und Du, which posits that only human relations lend life meaning. By loving others, the great 20th-century thinker contends, we engage with God -- our perpetual spouse, our Thou. Against that backdrop, Dugan's poem opens with a man in a shakily framed house, the life he has inherited or been born intoor married into.

Love Song: I and Thou

from Mary Karr: The Washington Post: Poet's Choice

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Rus Bowden · at 4:22 PM

by Gary Snyder

"In that year, 1914, we lived on the farm

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: 6 by Gary Snyder

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Doesn't Matter What It Looks Like
by Hal Sirowitz

"When you have blown your nose,
you should not open your handkerchief
and inspect it, as though pearls or rubies
had dropped out of your skull."
The Book of Manners (1958)

After you have blown your nose,

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Doesn't Matter What It Looks Like by Hal Sirowitz

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History of Desire
by Tony Hoagland

When you're seventeen, and drunk

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: History of Desire by Tony Hoagland

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Linguini
by Diane Lockward

It was always linguini between us.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Linguini by Diane Lockward

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Optimism
by Jane Hirshfield

More and more I have come to admire resilience.

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Optimism by Jane Hirshfield

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Tossing and Turning
by John Updike

The spirit has infinite facets, but the body

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: Tossing and Turning by John Updike

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What She Was Wearing
by Denver Butson

this is my suicide dress

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: What She Was Wearing by Denver Butson

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Rus Bowden · at 4:22 PM

around a grain of sand, and in this commemoration of an anniversary, Cecilia Woloch reaches back to grasp a few details that promise to bring a cherished memory forward, and succeeds in doing so. The poet lives and teaches in southern California.

Anniversary

from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 204

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Rus Bowden · at 4:21 PM

the Jordan Davidson Poetry Prize from Barry College in Florida, and I hasten to state that, although the cash award was miniscule, it gave my faith in my talents a tremendous boost. Indeed, that is what literary prizes are supposed to do: Elevate a struggling poet's self esteem. But does this psychological dynamic work for poets of integrity who are honest and truthful enough with themselves to realize there are thousands of poetry prizes being awarded in this country? At best, many of these prizes are questionable. At their worst, they are a swindle when they charge an entry fee.

from Anthony Maulucci: Norwich Bulletin: Not all contests legitimate, worth worrying about

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Rus Bowden · at 4:21 PM

the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, and Tibet independence were the most heavily censored, as expected.

Posts mentioning "sudden incidents," the Olympics, and corruption were also highly likely to be deleted.

Censorship methods varied from deleting entire posts with no explanation, to replacing offending posts with an apology note, to hiding posts from public view, to replacing forbidden words with asterisks while leaving the rest of the text on view.

from Luisetta Mudie: Radio Free Asia: How China Censors Blogs

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Rus Bowden · at 4:20 PM

the laughter of the Polish émigré and Nobel Prize-winning dissident Czeslaw Milosz: "The sound of it was infectious, but more precisely it was commanding. His laughter had the counter-authority of human intelligence, triumphing over the petty-minded authority of a regime." That's one hell of a chuckle. The problem isn't that Pinsky likes and admires Milosz; it's that he can't hear a Polish poet snortle without having fantasies about barricades and firing squads. He's by no means alone in that. Many of us in the American poetry world have a habit of exalting foreign writers while turning them into cartoons. And we do so because their very foreignness implies a distance--a potentially "great" distance--that we no longer have from our own writers, most of whom make regular appearances on the reading circuit and have publicly available office phones.

from David Orr: The New York Times: On Poetry: The Great(ness) Game

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Rus Bowden · at 4:20 PM

established in the sestet, and somehow maintains the intensity of its indignation through the weaker octet--because the political emotion is genuine.

How pertinent those lines about the rulers "who neither feel, nor see, nor know" are to England, 2009, with its bankers unqualified to bank and its cabinet ministers unqualified, it so often seems, to (ad)minister. Where are today's Shelleys? Why can't political poetry be as good as any other? Distrust anyone who says the postmodern muse should be above such things.

England in 1819

An old, mad, blind, despis'd, and dying king,

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poem of the week

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Rus Bowden · at 4:18 PM

merely the formation of images in our minds, but rather that process by which we take such images and the ideas we abstract from them and the feelings they generate in us and arrange them coherently and harmoniously into something new, in much the same way as the combination of two molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen becomes a compound that is altogether different from either of its constituents by themselves. For all that we are hearing in this year of Darwin about a supposed connection between art and evolution, it seems worth noting that no other species has found it necessary for its survival to decorate a nest or lair with frescoes or adorn itself with jewelry or sit around and listen while one of their number sings a tale of bestial heroism or romance.

from Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: That's What He Said: Maybe man is the 'imagining animal'

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Rus Bowden · at 4:18 PM

A meal of huevos rancheros in my belly,

from Express-News: Poetry: 'A tradition of breakfast'

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Rus Bowden · at 4:17 PM

we feature the work of Rob Wilson who has published poems and reviews in Bamboo Ridge journal since 1979, and in various other journals from Tinfish, Taxi, Manoa, and Central Park to New Republic, Ploughshares, Partisan Review, and Poetry. He is a western Connecticut native who attended UC Berkeley, where he was founding editor of the Berkeley Poetry Review in 1974. His study "Be Always Converting, Be Always Converted: An American Poetics" is forthcoming from Harvard University Press in spring 2009; and a collection of cultural criticism from Asia/Pacific (co-edited with Christopher Connery) "The Worlding Project: Doing Cultural Studies in the Era of Globalization" appeared with New Pacific Press/North Atlantic Books in fall 2007. He currently lives in La Selva Beach and San Francisco, and he is a professor of literature and cultural studies at UC Santa Cruz.

Twelve for Kerouac

from Good Times Weekly: Poetry Corner: Spooning Out Wisdom

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Rus Bowden · at 4:16 PM

The basic requirement of darkness

from The Guardian: The Saturday Poem: Darkness and the Subject

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Rus Bowden · at 4:15 PM

Uncle Chuck has always been

from The Kansas City Star: Between the Lines: 'Uncle Chuck's Poem,' by Ross Jacobs

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Rus Bowden · at 4:12 PM

by Leonard Cohen

from The New Yorker: Poetry: A Street

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Waiting and Finding
by Jack Gilbert

from The New Yorker: Poetry: Waiting and Finding

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Rus Bowden · at 4:11 PM

sweeping libraries near you, and the nation remembering Charles Darwin at 200, Ruth Padel pays tribute to her great-great grandfather in this compelling sequence of biographical poems (Darwin: A Life in Poems, Chatto & Windus, £12.99). This one imagines Darwin aged ten, in 1819, when his family went on holiday to Plas Edwards, or Barmouth, in North Wales.

'A child on a beach, alone.

from The Scotsman: Poem of the Week

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Rus Bowden · at 4:09 PM

By Mark Halliday

from Slate: "Slightly Tearful" --By Mark Halliday

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"The Sound That Wakes Me at Night, Thinking of It"
By Charles Harper Webb

from Slate: "The Sound That Wakes Me at Night, Thinking of It" --By Charles Harper Webb

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Rus Bowden · at 4:04 PM

Beit Daniel Guest House, 1994

Question:

What time capsule can I drop here for our baby son

from Zeek: Two Poems by Amy Gottlieb

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Rus Bowden · at 4:03 PM

of the 13 children born to John and Lydia Forsythe, she entered the world on Oct. 10, 1913 in Dugdale, Minn. Times were rough for her pioneer family as they struggled to survive on their small farm through the harsh Minnesota winters. She especially loved high school where she learned German, studied poetry, and participated in competitive girls' basketball.

from Duluth News Tribune: Myrtle Lydia Abbott

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Rus Bowden · at 4:02 PM

the First Baptist Church, the Driftwood Garden Club and the Monsanto Bridge Club. She loved arts, crafts, playing bridge and writing poetry.

from Greenwood Today: Betty S. Ates

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Rus Bowden · at 4:02 PM

baseball and boxing with his son, Anthony Andino, and was an enthusiastic fan of the New York Mets and Giants. He also enjoyed cooking shows.

Mr. [Theodore] Aviles liked to tell jokes to family members, draw pictures of people, and write poems.

from Staten Island Advance: Theodore Aviles, 58

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Rus Bowden · at 4:01 PM

published several books, including poetry and novels, and created and produced a handful of small Off Broadway musicals, but he never came close to matching the success of "Jacques Brel." That never fazed him, his family said.

"He had a lot of ideas," Matthew Blau said. "He was a man who moved on."

from The New York Times: Eric Blau, a Creator of 'Jacques Brel' Show, Dies at 87

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Rus Bowden · at 4:00 PM

wrote poems and celebrated each Valentine's Day with a love poem to her husband [Lloyd Bridges].

In 2005, at age 89, she collected them in the book "You Caught Me Kissing: A Love Story," which chronicled their life together, with accompanying family photos and commentary by her and her children [Jeff and Beau Bridges].

from Los Angeles Times: Dorothy Bridges dies at 93; 'the hub' of an acting family

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Rus Bowden · at 4:00 PM

that met at Ferguson Library, and his family set up the Herbert Davison Poetry Fund in hopes of gathering enough donations to start a program there.

One of Davison's best poems was titled "My Soul Knows Things," [Eleni Begetis] Anastos said. With that in mind, she wrote a poem for him:

"At the end of your voyage, of your Stygian ride

from Stamford Advocate: Chiropractor arrested in deadly assault on 79-year-old Stamford man

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Rus Bowden · at 3:59 PM

Koori rehab centre in Brunswick in Melbourne's poetry belt. In the unspeakable gloom of his sepulchral tomb I tried to make him laugh, but he was too far gone. Unheralded, he single-handedly organised the annual Mont Salvat poetry festival at Eltham, where hundreds of T.S. Eliots live only for poeticised sermons and getting their end in.

He attracted the best readers aloud. Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Alan Ginsberg came, and declaimed to great acclaim. Geof must have felt vindicated when poetry lovers clapped their brains out for the thrill of witnessing the cutting-edge of concrete poetry and lyrical poetry previously heard only on radio. Yet the Australia Council never gave Geof a buck.

from The Land: Poetic justice? None in a country that shuts its ears to the word

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Rus Bowden · at 3:58 PM

but Walt Whitman Hollon enjoyed writing poetry.

He often kept a pad and pencil nearby for doodling. He'd dash off verse on special occasions--for Betty, his wife, on Valentine's Day. When his son, Terry, turned 21. And when his daughter, Janet, turned 16.

Walt Hollon liked to write poems for his wife on Valentine's Day, and for his two children when they hit certain ages."The poem for our son had 21 verses, mind you," said Mrs. Hollon, his wife of 61 years. "And of course for the children he'd interject a little lesson, something about life that you should or shouldn't do. Give a little advice along the way. We made a little booklet out of the things he's written over the years."

from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Walt Whitman Hollon, 90, salesman, family poet

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Rus Bowden · at 3:58 PM

public speaker; winning first prize in public speaking at school, and first prize in the Goshen College Poetry Reading Contest.

Mary attended Goshen College in Goshen, Ind., graduating in 1965 with a BA degree in English. She was hired to teach English at Lowville Academy and taught there through 1968. After several summers and a year of graduate study at Columbia University, she earned an MA degree in English in 1969. She was then hired by Beaver River Central School as an English teacher, and she taught there until her retirement in 1998.

from newzjunky: Mary B. Honer

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Rus Bowden · at 3:57 PM

[Carridder M.] Jones later found her voice as a playwright. Her first play, "Lady of the House," was produced in the small Martin Experimental Theater at the Kentucky Center, a three-night run that sold out. Her plays also have been part of the Juneteenth Festival at Actors Theatre. Themes in her work include early African-American culture and contemporary society.

from The Courier-Journal: Carridder M. Jones

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Rus Bowden · at 3:57 PM

and dialogue weathered the AFS [American Farm School at Thessaloniki] through the Greek Junta.

His books, Master Farmer (1986) and Cultivating Inspired Leaders (2000), have been translated into several languages and have become established as recognised tools for global work in sustainable development. His long, autobiographical poem is published in the bilingual Greek and English book Metamorphosis: Why Do I Love Greece? (1979).

from Energy Publisher: Beloved American educator dies in Greece

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Rus Bowden · at 3:56 PM

at Blythewood Middle School, officials said.

"The ones who knew her all expressed a lot of sadness," Richland 2 psychologist Shirley Vickerysaid. "They'll miss her."

Chantel, a 10th-grader at Ridge View High School, was described by Principal Marty Martin as smart and cheerful.

"She had this loving disposition about her--always smiling even when things were tough, always trying to cheer people up, always exchanging pleasantries."

Chantel played volleyball while Jevonn wrote poetry, family members said.

from The State: Drowned sisters died holding hands

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Rus Bowden · at 3:55 PM

probably My Sex is Ice Cream (Ekstasis Editions), a 1996 book of poems based on the life of McClung's hero, Marilyn Monroe. Her most recent book was I Hate Wives! a "short collection of terse verse and aphorisms on sexual politics" published by Ekstasis Editions in 2003.

from January Magazine: Canadian Poet Nellie McClung Dead at 80

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Rus Bowden · at 3:54 PM

to theatrical, cultural and political issues, [Bob] Nanninga had a hand in everything. "He was like a cultural icon, really, Tucker said.

One of his many passions was promoting the local arts community. Danny Salzhandler of the 101 Artists' Colony first worked with Nanninga a decade ago at the Full Moon Poets' Society Poetry Slam in Encinitas. Nanninga emceed the event and became synonymous with its success. "He really did give his heart to the poets," Salzhandler said. "And he shined brighter than the moon."

"I heard someone say that 'we're just another boring town without Bob,'" Salzhandler said. "They were right."

from The Coast News: Community activist, actor and businessman lived full life

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Rus Bowden · at 3:50 PM

at birth. He wrote by tapping a keyboard with a device strapped to his head.

Despite the challenges he faced, Nolan won the Whitbread prize in 1988 for his debut novel Under the Eye of the Clock.

In an acceptance speech read by his mother, the author said: "I want to shout with joy. My heart is full of gratitude."

from BBC News: Whitbread winner Nolan dies at 43

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Rus Bowden · at 3:49 PM

she had a column in The Cleveland Press called "The Week in ReVerse." She also published thousands of poems over the decades in The Plain Dealer, New York Times, Washington Post, Ladies' Home Journal, Saturday Evening Post and more.

"They aren't all good," she once confessed.

In her native New Orleans, a publisher put her poetry before Shakespeare's, Blake's and the Brownings' on a spoken record, "Soft Words, Warm Nights: The Most Romantic Poems Ever Spoken."

from The Plain Dealer: Mae Winkler Goodman Samuel, 97, leading poet, dies in New Hampshire

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Rus Bowden · at 3:49 PM

at Wal-Mart in Manitowoc, part time at the Manitowoc Yacht Club and also was tutoring at LTC. She enjoyed writing, reading, poetry, playing cards and board games, and spending time with her family and friends.

from Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter: Tara Jo Schweigl

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Rus Bowden · at 3:48 PM

for her passion for poetry, writing poetry and having published several poetry books and having received recognition as Author of the Year by the PDIMA, and was a regular guest writer for the Marion Star.

from The Marion Star: Irene M. Sprague

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Tuesday, February 24, 2009